Navigating Emotion and Actions (Nursing)

00:02 A new team member sheepishly walks up to Candice and points out a documentation oversight and asked for the missing information.

00:12 Candice looks into his eyes and is insulted at the accusation.

00:18 She feels her blood begin to boil. She thinks "Why is he bringing this up? Is he trying to get me in trouble? Will I be reported like he never makes a mistake?" Come on. Her self-talk goes rampant. She embraces the eye roll and scoffs.

00:38 She fills out the information, turns her back, and walks away.

00:43 The new team member is intimidated, worried, and confused.

00:49 He did not intend to cause a fuss but he needed the missing information to do his job well.

00:56 He made a mental note for his future exchanges with Candice and began to be more cautious in her presence.

01:05 This exchange exemplifies an emotional intelligence programming model.

01:12 Every person has a story, experiences, things they have been told or seen that impact the programming or storytelling within ourselves.

01:23 These stories, these experiences, these relationships make up the programming of who we are.

01:31 Our EQ begins with our programming. Programming then impacts our thoughts.

01:38 Candice interpreted someone pointing out a mistake as accusatory and associated the encounter as trying to get her into trouble.

01:48 You may have experienced a dog attack and have hesitations and attack possibility thoughts about dogs.

01:56 You may have tasted excellent spaghetti and meatballs at your grandparents' home and associate the taste with pleasant memories and thoughts of your grandparents.

02:06 You may have had a patient that made comments about your attentiveness to their needs, judged your competency as a nurse or said hurtful things about your level of care.

02:18 You may associate mild patient criticism with the very hurtful things that were said in the past.

02:27 You may have experienced bullying in your workplace from more senior nurses and associate microaggressions with thoughts of territorial or egotistical personas.

02:40 All of these are examples of how our experiences impact our thoughts.

02:47 Now, our thoughts impact our feelings.

02:52 Perhaps when you heard the story of a dog attack, your heart rate spiked.

02:57 You emphatize with the fear of an attack.

03:01 Perhaps when you heard the story about eating a good meal with your grandparents, you smiled.

03:07 You may have a warm feeling of home and comfort.

03:12 If you no longer have living grandparents, you may have had feelings of loss or longing.

03:18 If you have an estranged relationship with your grandparents, you may have feelings of bitterness or regret.

03:26 This is a good example of how your programming can impact your thoughts and feelings.

03:33 In the workplace, stories of patient criticism or co-worker bullying may spark a strong emotion reiterated through stories and thoughts.

03:45 The new team member may have feelings of anxiety around Candice because of the initial experience of confronting her about a challenge which resulted in negative self-talk about Candice which invoked feelings of anxiety and distress.

04:05 So, programming impacts thoughts or self-talk, which impacts our feelings and emotions and all of these can directly impact our behavior.

04:19 Candice and the new team member may have a strained relationship and slight distress moving forward with the current self-talk.

04:31 This may manifest itself in behavior such as hesitancy or no communication, not reporting errors and gossip.

04:41 This could manifest itself in raised voices, eye rolls, and dismissive comments.

04:49 Emotional intelligence plays a massive role not only in your success as an individual care provider, but also in your role as a team member helping to create wellness in your workplace and community.

05:06 Now, the good thing is that you can alter your programming model. That's right.

05:12 Candice and the new employee could have a conversation and perhaps Candice could explain that she was having a bad day.

05:20 Perhaps, the new employee could explain that he was only trying to do his job and did not intend to accuse her of poor competency.

05:30 The programming or storytelling can change.

05:34 You can change your programming without a sit down conversation with everyone.

05:40 You cannot alter your experiences or stories that you've lived.

05:45 You can alter the self-talk and thoughts which will impact the feelings and emotions which will directly alter behavior.

05:56 This has a dramatic impact on your personal emotional intelligence and the feeling of psychological and tangible safety in the team.

06:08 Higher levels of EQ in a team have been proven time and again to drive feelings of psychological safety in teams.

06:18 This manifests itself in powerful ways in the medical field.

06:24 Let's take a moment to focus on psychological safety.

06:28 A psychological safety is a captivating concept first academically proven by a researcher named Amy Edmondson setting hospitals and setting charge nurses and nurses in the hospital.

06:42 She discovered that the best charge nurses had higher rates of reported accidents than a poor leader.

06:51 Now, this seems a little weird. It should be a good leader that has less accidents reported. Right? But it wasn't until Amy did qualitative research that she found that the keyword in this study was reported.

07:10 In psychologically safe teams, the team members felt safe to report their mistakes.

07:18 And on teams where they fear their leader, they didn't.

07:22 And now, besides the widely ethical legal and practical issues with not reporting medical mistakes, my point is this...It is only in the psychologically safe environment where team members felt safe that they could continue to develop and learn and grow.

07:43 So, here's what I want you to do. I want you to identify what behaviors you desire.

07:52 How can you alter your self-talk to better create an environment where everyone can thrive?